Another word for puzzle | Synonyms for puzzle

Another word for puzzle

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puzzle perplex mystify bewilder confound

These verbs mean to cause bafflement or confusion. Puzzle suggests difficulty in solving or interpreting something: “The poor creature puzzled me once . . . by a question merely natural and innocent” (Daniel Defoe). Perplex stresses uncertainty or anxiety, as over reaching an understanding or finding a solution: a dilemma that perplexed the committee. Mystify implies defying comprehension by obscuring facts: symbolism that mystifies me. Bewilder emphasizes extreme mental confusion: “The old know what they want; the young are sad and bewildered” (Logan Pearsall Smith). To confound is to confuse and astonish: God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise (I Corinthians 1:27).

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Another word for puzzle

verb

To cause to be unclear in mind or intent:

addle, befuddle, bewilder, confound, confuse, discombobulate, dizzy, fuddle, jumble, mix up, muddle, mystify, perplex. (Informal) throw. Idiom: make one's head reel (or swim) (or whirl). See clear, feelings

phrasal verb puzzle out

To find the key to (a code, for example):

break, crack, decipher, decrypt. See knowledge

noun

Anything that arouses curiosity or perplexes because it is unexplained, inexplicable, or secret:

conundrum, enigma, mystery, perplexity, puzzler, riddle. See show

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At the beginning and end of each chapter occur puzzle-canons, wherein the primary part or parts alone are given, and the reader has to discover the canon that fixes the period and the interval at which the response is to enter.
This widely-scattered race has no political union and its distribution is a puzzle for ethnography.
Ampere, Wollaston and others, the realization of the continuous rotation of the wire and the magnet round each other was a scientific puzzle requiring no mean ingenuity for its original solution.
Why the alphabetic characters are introduced where they are is a puzzle; the order of these is: ~ U ~.
Some of his writings, from their metaphysical subtilty, will always puzzle the learned; but he could write to the level of the common heart without loss of dignity or pointedness.

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